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Analysis

The G20 New Delhi Summit's Significant Performance

John Kirton, G20 Research Group, September 14, 2023

The G20's 18th summit, held in New Delhi, India, on September 9-10, 2023, produced a significant performance. At its halfway mark, on the afternoon of its first day, its leaders finally agreed on a full consensus outcome document, and immediately released this G20 New Delhi Leaders' Declaration amidst the glow of a seemingly great success. It did indeed show significant progress on a broad range of important issues. But a close examination also reveals the great gaps on some critical subjects, above all controlling the now existential threat of climate change. It was only in the concluding session, when Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva spoke, that a significant performance overall was secured.

Significant Progress

The New Delhi Summit's first achievement was the production of a fully consensus communiqué, including on the paragraphs addressing Russia's aggression against Ukraine. To secure Russia's agreement, the other G20 leaders weakened the language from the Bali Summit last November, by removing the words "Russia" and "aggression," substituting a reference to the specific United Nations resolutions that had described Russia's actions in this way. This was enough to satisfy Russian president Vladimir Putin, who again skipped the summit to stay at home to cope with a war he had started, but was now steadily losing, and an economy in a steep decline. By giving him this face-saving gesture, and with China's President Xi Jinping also staying home, all the other G20 leaders were free to address the many other issues they had. This they did and showed the world that they could produce effective global governance without the Russian and Chinese dictators there.

Dimensions of Performance

Their advances on the major dimensions of summit performance confirms that they did (see Appendix A).

Domestic Political Management

On the first dimension, domestic political management, performance was strong. The attendance of 85% of the leaders, with only Putin, Xi Jinping and Mexico's President Andrés Manuel López Obrador skipping the summit, was at the same level as the Bali Summit's last year, although it was the first time that the leader of a very powerful China was absent (in 2022, in addition to Putin and López Obrador, Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro stayed home).

Domestic editorial approval was very strong. The lead editorial in the Indian Express on page 10 on September 11, entitled "India's world," emphasized the consensus text on Rusia's war against Ukraine, the West's decision to address the concerns of the Global South, India's impressive strategic gains and "the emerging cooperation between India and the west on global issues."

The lead editorial in the Hindustan Times on page 14 on September 11, entitled, "G20 presidency is a big triumph," highlighted its many events throughout India and resulting electoral benefits, its consensus on a broad agenda, its adjusted and expanded consensus on Russia's war against Ukraine, and it advances on debt relief, digital public infrastructure, reform of multilateral development banks (MDBs), climate change, artificial intelligence and crypto assets. The lead editorial in the Times of India on page 18 on September 11, entitled "Delhi Delivers, In Style," began with "that a G20 consensus was achieved when geopolitics is so bitter was a real accomplishment." But it later added: "The feel-good consensus on climate issues shall have to be followed by concrete mobilisation of the trillions of dollars needed for developing countries to implement their nationally determined contributions." The second editorial in the Economic Times on page 16 on September 11, entitled "Get Trans-Atlantic Ducks in a Row," began "A new, trans-Atlantic alliance is taking shape." It added "The bookended bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the G20 Leaders' Summit with the two democracies provides a glimpse into this entente cordiale." It ended with "ensuring a rules-based order that leaves no one behind while protecting open global systems is the bedrock of this nascent alliance."

Deliberation

In their public deliberation, leaders produced a single declaration of 34 pages and 376 paragraphs – substantially longer than the 28 pages and 110 paragraphs of the declaration from the Bali Summit last year. Its 14,290 words exceeded the 10,402 words from Bali, and the 12,871 average from all G20 summits from 2008 to 2022.

Direction Setting

In setting principles and norms, performance was significant. The declaration made many affirmations of the G20's two distinctive foundation mission of promoting financial stability and, above all, making globalization work for the benefit of all. It also affirmed the G7's distinction foundational missions of open democracy, through the value of transparency, and of human rights several times.

Decision Making

In decision making, through precise, future-oriented, politically binding commitments, performance was strong.

The New Delhi Leaders' Declaration contained 242 commitments, more than the 223 made at the Bali Summit, and the fourth highest since the first summit in 2008. The New Delhi commitments were led by development with 47, taking 19% of the total (see Appendix B). This translated Prime Minister Narendra Modi's top priority of giving voice to the Global South, and the need for development, into real decisions.

In second place came health, with 25 commitments for 10%. This drew on India's capability as the "pharmacy of the world" and its invention of digital public infrastructure for health. It also addressed the current phase of the Covid-19 crisis, with new variants starting to rise and spread throughout the G20. Gender equality was tied for second, with 25 commitments for 10%. This advanced Modi's priority for women-led development, but broadened it to link gender to climate change, health and other subjects, thus giving the leaders of Canada and France a fellow G20 gender equality champion from the Global South.

Next came climate change and the environment, with 19 commitments for 8% each. Together with energy in seventh place with 13 for 5%, this gave the combination of climate, the environment and energy 51 commitment for 21%. This reflected Modi's initial approach that put the environment first.

In sixth place was food and agriculture with 14 commitments, spurred by the food crisis flowing from Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Then in eighth place was the digital economy with 12 commitments, followed by the macroeconomy with 11, labour and employment with 10 and financial regulation with 9.

The New Delhi declaration and its commitments thus addressed all of the priorities Modi, as host, had set, including his most innovative ones.

Achievements

The leaders at New Delhi made several specific significant achievements. They opened their declaration by proclaiming "We are One Earth … it is with the philosophy of living in harmony with our surrounding ecosystem that we commit to concrete actions to address global challenges." They thus put the natural environment first and, prospectively, throughout.

They then made 12 clear, if general, commitments. They were to accelerate economic growth, implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), pursue low greenhouse gas/low carbon emissions, improve medical countermeasures, address debt vulnerabilities, scale up SDG finance, accelerate efforts to achieve the Paris Agreement on climate change, reform the MDBs, improve digitalization, promote employment, close gender gaps, and strengthen developing countries' voice in the G20 and global decision making. Climate change was the only subject that got 2 of the 12.

They then followed with eight paragraphs on Russia's war against Ukraine, far more than at Bali last year. This made the G20 a broader peace and security club than it was before, by adding details on Russia's war against Ukraine to earlier summit actions on the use of chemical weapons in Syria, and on terrorist and proliferation finance. There was also, at India's initiative, an expansion the G20's treatment of terrorism. A further expansion came, in paragraph 74 on the "illicit trafficking and diversion of small arms and light weapons."

On health the leaders committed to "strengthening the global health architecture, with the World Health Organization (WHO) at the core." They also affirmed the WHO's centrality in new measures on pandemic preparedness and response, traditional and complementary medicine in health, and medical countermeasures.

The Great Gaps

However, there were several great gaps. Most commitments were weak, with G20 leaders largely promising to keep doing what they had already committed to do, to explore options, endorse or support others' work, or commission studies.

There was almost no new money mobilized, even for the critical urgent issues of climate change, debt relief for developing countries, global health, or food security, education or other social needs.

There was also little new on reform of the MDBs, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the UN or the G20 itself. On reforming the G20, the one change was to add the African Union as a permanent member, without explaining what capacity or perspectives it would contribute that South Africa had not done since the G20's start in 1999.

The greatest gap came on the most serious and urgent challenge – climate change and its companions of clean energy, biodiversity loss and environmental pollution. To be sure, the declaration's section on "Green Development Pact for a Sustainable Future" contained 53 commitments – the same number as Bali had produced on the environment, climate change and energy. But none of New Delhi's commitments were an ambitious advance on the Bali ones. None were nearly ambitious enough to contain the climate emergency the world now faced, and that the leaders highlighted in their declaration itself.

The G20 leaders' new promise on renewable energy read only "We … will pursue and encourage efforts to triple renewable energy capacity globally through existing targets and policies … by 2030," which is seven years from now. They included several of the standard escape clauses. And they did not promise to reach their goal.

On fossil fuel subsidies they simply repeated the commitment, for the 15th time, to "increase our efforts to implement the commitment made in 2009 in Pittsburgh to phase-out and rationalize, over the medium term, inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption and commit to achieve this objective, while providing targeted support for the poorest and the most vulnerable." But they added nothing on how they would finally keep this long overdue promise, which, the IMF said, would save the world the $7 trillion every year needed to contain climate change. The commitment as written would likely have compliance by G20 members a year later of only 60%.

Conclusion: Strengthening the G20 System

What ultimately produced the Delhi Summit's significant performance were its achievements in strengthening the G20 system to serve as an effective centre of global governance.

These achievements had begun with the New Delhi declaration's inclusion of many of the 701 commitments made by the G20's 19 pre-summit ministerial meetings held throughout India in 2023 (see Appendix C). This was important both for their substantive contents and because such meetings increase the members' compliance with the commitments that G20 leaders make at their summit on the same subjects.

The first achievement at the New Delhi Summit itself came as it started, when Modi announced that the African Union would be admitted as a permanent member. This was the first addition since the G20 had started at the level of finance ministers and central bank governors in 1999.

The second achievement came at the end of the New Delhi Declaration released during the first afternoon. Here the leaders promised to meet again in person, not only in Brazil in 2024 and South Africa in 2025 but also in "the United States in 2026 at the beginning of the next cycle." This ensured that the democratic powers of the Global South and the Global North would host the G20 continuously for at least six years or even longer, as the word "cycle" suggested that the United Kingdom would host in 2027, Canada in 2028, and then three democracies Korea, France and Mexico before Russia's turn (following the sequence that had started in 2008). By then Russia will have had enough time to rejoin the democratizing club.

The third achievement, and an immediately important one, was Modi's announcement in his closing remarks that he would hold a second G20 summit during his presidency, in late November, in virtual form. This would go well beyond a ceremonial handover to the next host, Brazil, taking the reins on December 1. It would include a leaders' review of what they had accomplished, and what more needed to be done now. Modi stated that all G20 leaders at Deli had offered many suggestions, and that his special summits would discuss them and act on some of them. His special summit would focus on development, his first priority and leading decisional achievement at Delhi. It would take place right after the UN High Level Meeting on Sustainable Development and the three HLMs on health in New York in September. It thus offered a chance to take far more ambitious action on climate change, especially as it, and its intensified extreme weather events, were likely to increase.
 
The fourth achievement also came in the New Delhi Summit's closing session, when Lula, as the incoming G20 president for the summit in Rio di Janeiro on November 18-19, 2024, announced its theme, priorities and approach.

The theme would be "Building a Just World and a Sustainable Planet." He said he would follow, and follow up on, India's achievements, and he identified the three Rio Summit priorities as social inclusion and the fight against hunger; the energy transition and sustainable development (in its economic, social and environmental dimensions); and the reform of global governance institutions .

More specifically, Rio would focus on reducing inequality as the main priority, including gender inequality, race inequality, education inequality, health inequality and food inequality. Lula added encouraging the energy transition and sustainable development, and changing international governance. These social issues had firm foundation in the many commitments the New Delhi Summit made on most of them.

On hunger, the aim was ending it by 2030. On climate change, resources and technology transfer were needed.

On energy. Lula highlighted clean energy, with 90% of Brazil's electricity and 50% of its energy being clean, compared to 15% of clean energy for the rest of the world. Brazil adopted ethanol almost 50 years earlier, promoted biofuels as an alternative to oil, and at elhi launched the Global Biofuels Alliance with the leaders of Argentina, the United States and India, and would promote ethanol for transport.

On international governance reform, Lula highlighted the World Bank, in which developing countries should have more participation or even run, the IMF, which he had tried to do since the 2008 G20 Washington Summit, and permanent membership on the UN Security Council, with new developing countries among its permanent and non-permanent members. The World Bank and IMF must address the poorest countries external debt. The World Trade Organization must be reformed and its dispute settlement system restored.

On Ukraine, Lula highlighted the need for peace and its inclusion in the Delhi Declaration and its impact on refugees.  

He also said Brazil would create two G20 task forces: The Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty, and the Global Mobilization against Climate Change.

On the summit process, Brazil would first, make the political and finance tracks work in more integrated ways and allocate the necessary resources for the implementation of G20 policy decisions. Second, it would listen to society and ensure the engagement groups could report their recommendations to the government. Third, it would not let geopolitical issues hijack the agenda. Brazil would hold events is several cities in all of Brazil's five regions.

In his closing remarks at New Delhi, Lula began by saying "nature continues to demonstrate that we need to take much more care of it. This week, three days ago, in Brazil, a cyclone in the state of Rio Grande do Sul – there had never been a cyclone before – killed forty-six people and almost fifty people are missing. This catches our attention because phenomena like this have happened in the most different places on our planet." This showed that like India, he put the environment first but now started with the shock activated vulnerability form climate change and its intensified extreme weather events.

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Appendix A: G20 Summit Performance, 2008–2023 ↩

Compiled by John Kirton, September 10, 2023
Notes: a) London Summit, b) Pittsburgh Summit, c) Toronto Summit, d) Seoul Summit. N/A = not applicable.
The 2020 and 2021 summits include virtual attendance, due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The 2023 summit lacked the leaders of Russia, China and Mexico (whose leader has not attended since 2019).
Compliance average is by the 17 years, not by the 401 individual commitments.

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Appendix B: G20 New Delhi Leaders' Declaration Commitments ↩

Note: Identified and compiled by Brittaney Warren, September 10, 2023.

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Appendix C: G20 Ministerial Meetings, 2023 ↩

To help prepare the summit, India mounted 19 ministerial meetings, involving 16 different ministerial portfolios, similar to what Indonesia did the year before (see Appendix B). All were scheduled to take place before the summit, with almost all starting in June. These densely scheduled meetings left less time for members with small sherpa teams to mount bilateral meetings or manage their schedules to attend. There was thus some fatigue, with officials having to travel to India every month from April to September.

By early September, the 17 ministerial meetings held in India had each produced a consensus outcome document, containing 701 commitments on which Delhi's leaders could build. All meetings had a message from Modi himself. But all documents contained one-to-three paragraphs issued as a chair's summary, due to Russia and often Chinese dissent.

On February 25, 2023, the finance ministers and central bank governors meeting in Bengaluru produced a chair's summary and outcome document of seven pages plus two annexes. It contained 67 commitments covering 11 subjects (see Appendix C). They were led by financial regulation (including of cryptocurrencies) with 14, followed by climate change and macroeconomic policy with nine each, international financial institution (IFI) reform with eight; health with seven; infrastructure with five; development, tax and crime with four each; trade with two; and terrorism and non-proliferation with one each.

The document noted that all participants agreed to paragraphs 1–2 and 5–7, but not paragraphs 3–4 on the war in Ukraine, with which Russia and now China disagreed, contained no commitments. It appeared as a chair's summary as well as an outcome document. This marked a retreat from the full agreement on the Bali's Leaders' Declaration (including the passages on Ukraine). Moreover, China had now joined Russia in its dissent. So there was a retreat, rather than an advance from the Bali Summit consensus on Ukraine.

On March 1–2, the G20 foreign ministers meeting in New Delhi followed a similar formula. It produced a chair's summary and outcome document of nine pages and 24 paragraphs. It contained 16 commitments covering seven subjects. By section titles, strengthening multilateralism (through the SDG Summit, the 29th Conference of the Parties [COP] to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Summit of the Future, and cooperation with regional partners and Africa) had two, food and energy security had one, climate change and biodiversity had nine, global health had one, development cooperation had one, counterterrorism had one, and gender equality and women's empowerment had one. Among the subjects with commitments in both these first two ministerial meetings were climate change/biodiversity with 18 and development with five.

In mid-April, the finance ministers and central bank governors met in Washington DC, as part of the semi-annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. They were unable even to produce a chair's summary, so no new commitments came.

On June 10-11, development ministers met in Varanasi, Utter Pradesh. They produced two documents. The first was an Outcome Document and Chairs' Summary of 1,787 words which stated that all members agreed to paragraph's 1–9 and 12–14. The second was titled "G20 High Level Principles on Lifestyles for Sustainable Development," which contained 12,385 words, to which all members agreed. This showed that the SDGs were a unifying force. The Outcome Document contained 36 commitments.

On June 17, agriculture ministers met in Hyderabad. They produced an outcome document and chair's summary with 4,818 words and 26 paragraphs, one annex and a "Stocktaking of G20 Initiatives in Agriculture." All members agreed to all paragraphs save for Russia, which dissociated itself from paragraphs 3–5, and "China stated that the meetings outcome should not include any reference to the Ukraine crisis." The document and its Annex contained 45 commitments.

On June 21–22, tourism ministers in Goa made 10 commitments.

On June 22, education ministers met in Pune. They produced an outcome document and chair's summary with 34 paragraphs and 21 commitments. All members agreed to paragraphs 1–6 and 9–34. Russia said it was not an outcome document due to paragraphs 7–8 on Ukraine and China said "G20 technical working groups are not the right forums to discuss geopolitical issues."

In July, the production of commitments surged. On July 5, research ministers in Mumbai made 25 commitments. On July 17–18, finance ministers and central bank governors in Gandhinagar made 95 commitments. On July 21, labour and employment ministers in Indore made 30 commitments. On July 22, energy ministers in Goa made 48 commitments. On July 28–29, environment and climate sustainability ministers meeting in Chennai made a new peak of 133 commitments. By the end of July, G20 ministers had made a total of 501 commitments.

In August they added many more. On August 3, the ministerial meeting on women's empowerment in Gandhinagar made 28 commitments. On August 9–12, anti-corruption ministers in Kolkata made 47 commitments. On August 19, digital economy ministers in Bengaluru made 11 commitments. On August 18–19, health ministers in Gandhinagar made 28 commitments. On August 24-25, trade and investment ministers in Jaipur made 26 commitments. And on August 26, culture ministers in Varanasi made 32 commitments.

By September 5, the 17 pre-summit ministerial meetings held in India had produced 701 full-consensus commitments. The finance and energy ministers' meeting, to be held jointly on the eve of the summit on September 8, was due to produce several more.

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